


the slow descent

by kamisado



Category: Dollhouse
Genre: Gen, Gore, POV Second Person, Season/Series 02 Spoilers, Stream of Consciousness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-11
Updated: 2012-09-11
Packaged: 2017-11-14 01:30:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/509868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kamisado/pseuds/kamisado
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They always thought your descent into madness came on real quick, but you know it started a long time before.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the slow descent

_You don't know me, and I don't know you… not fully, not ever._

You knew Claire Saunders, the physician. You gave her everything the house needed, but not everything she needed. Still can't look her in the eye, can't look without staring at the scars that crisscross. Remember how she moved past all that, the programmed distaste evolving into a loathing that was never intended.

You knew Whiskey too, the doll. Watched every day for years as she reclined in the chair. Schoolteacher. Dominatrix. Girl-next-door. No wonder she was number one. She moved with instinctive grace, and every time you made her anew, you envied whoever got to spend time with her for one day. One more day than you ever could.

And you knew Clare Brink, the big sister. The one who gave good advice, who supported your decision to go into medicine, even when nobody else did. The gentle, beautiful woman and then the horrific accident, the drunken stupid fiancée, the wreckage, the fire brigade, the _phone call_ from the hospital:

"Christopher, it's your sister."

Adelle’s offer. Rossum's assistance.

You suppose you should be indebted to them for giving you the time and expertise and resources to save your sister, but some days you wish she'd just been left to die.

*

_I know what I know I know what I know I know what I know_

But what _do_ you know? You know how to dissect a body: easier when you're in med school, under the prying eyes of your envious peers, watching you take apart flesh piece by precise piece. It’s easier when the air's clinical; when you're too busy thinking of impressing to remember this was once a person.

It’s harder when the body's still warm. Slice the flesh, split the arteries, saw the bone. The splintering crunch beneath your fingers, cooling blood smeared across your face, hands shaking with the stress. Add the acid, the smell of decay permeating the air. The bile rises in your throat once again.

And it all comes back to Boyd. Boyd the leader, the orchestrator, the friendly face when you need it most. Swooping in to save the day, with instructions and tools. You had never thought you’d have friends, but Boyd was different. You know how to make the tech to destroy the world, but you don't know enough about humans to trust the right people.

* 

_I was just trying to help her_

But you're always trying to help her.

You tried to help Clare, and got her sliced up.  
You tried to help Claire, and she lost her mind.  
You tried to help Priya, and she killed a man.

And Bennett. All she ever did was help you, mostly against choice. Helped you put Caroline back together, helped you realize what being in love was like. You were on level footing: the shy neurology major with the unfeeling arm and the broken heart; the socially-inept computer programmer with the unfeeling sister and the broken morals. You still remember how it felt when her blood struck your face, a warm trickle down your cheek. And your sister but not your sister, holding the gun, walking away.

They always thought your descent into madness came on real quick, but you know it started a long time before.

*

_Please don’t use a bullet, don’t wanna waste…one bullet a day, don’t wanna waste…_

The pencil slides from your sweaty grasp as you scrawl schematics onto any paper left but:

 _no the wavelength's all wrong_ that's such a stupid mistake and the pencil breaks and you can't find another and you know they're coming back soon and you grab a felt tip marker keep on writing in bright red hues but no I can hear them and the door slams open and the young woman screams, begs for mercy as she's thrown onto her knees, but you've seen all this before and you know she won't be begging for much longer but it doesn't get any easier and she looks you dead in the eye with her last ounce of strength but the gun is placed to the back of her head-

You still bite back a scream when her forehead explodes; red splattered across your cheek just like the first woman you ever saw shot in the head, the first woman you ever loved.

*

_I didn't want to cause any more pain_

and when everything is set, you turn to the wall, with all of the faces of those that you knew and those you didn't all smiling captured forever and the hum of the machine behind you and you'd never noticed this wall before and it had never even occurred to you that these people would even be missed because you know that except Adelle nobody's going to miss you and you see their faces and their names their real names stick out in your mind

priya-caroline-anthony-ivy-clare-everyonewhoyouevermetinthisgodforsakenplace

and weary eyes settle on one picture a tiny snapshot you don't remember ever being taken a cheeky grin floppy hair and two thumbs up and you're looking at yourself from a decade ago and for the first time in a long time you're hit by a moment of

startling

clarity

 

"Huh."


End file.
